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Posts Tagged ‘Numbers’

Easter can surely be seen in Numbers, the 4th of the 5 books of the Pentateuch as the books of the law are often called.

Serpent on a pole

In Numbers 21, when the people had spoken against Moses and God, God sent fiery serpents among the people. The serpents bit the people and many died. When the Moses prayed for the LORD to have mercy on the people, God told Moses to make “a fiery serpent and put it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” It was just as God had said. God provided an antidote to save those who were otherwise doomed.

We know that this story speaks of the Son of Man because Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3 “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This time God was offering up His own son on a pole to save the lives of those who would believe.

The idea of a serpent on the pole being able to heal those who look on it seems too simple. It is the same with the cross. How simple is it? Jesus said that whoever believes in the Son of Man, will have eternal life. The cross was the way to get the attention of the lost and dying. “Look up here!” He said. “You can be saved!”

Jesus foretold his own death by crucifixion. In John 12, it is recorded that Jesus said, “If I am lifted up from the earth, [I] will draw all peoples to Myself.” It goes on to say in the verse following, just so no doubt is left in the reader’s mind, “This He said, signifying by what death He would die.”